Will Lewis has overseen a year of unprecedented change at the Daily Telegraph.

A move to new headquarters in Victoria and enthusiasm for all things new media was accompanied by a seemingly endless cycle of resignations and redundancies. If the paper looks the same on the surface, then behind the scenes there has been a revolution. And it has not been a bloodless one.

Lewis's mission was to turn the Telegraph from a newspaper into a complete multimedia operation. He is not alone in that ambition. What distinguished the Telegraph editor from his rivals was the speed with which he approached the task, which was either bold or reckless, depending on your point of view.

Out went the newsdesk, in came the "news-hub" and the "media wall"; out went deadlines, in came "touchpoints", with journalists expected to provide text, audio and video at different times of the day.

"We are following the reader, and they are moving pretty rapidly into new places," said Lewis, who claimed his paper was already one year ahead of its rivals. "Everyone who's not started this process - they're already dead."

But has the quality of the Telegraph's core product - the paper - suffered as a result?

The Telegraph's youngest-ever editor, Lewis was appointed to the top job in October last year, capping a phenomenal rise since he was poached from the Sunday Times as the paper's city editor in 2005.

Having overseen the Telegraph's move from Canary Wharf into central London, he became its third editor in a year, after acting editor John Bryant - who left the group in December last year - and Martin Newland, who quit in 2005.

Renowned for his energy and missionary zeal, Lewis spent eight years in various senior positions at the Financial Times before becoming city editor of the Sunday Times in 2002. Having been poached by Telegraph chief executive Murdoch MacLennan, he was rapidly promoted to joint deputy editor and then managing director, editorial.

A newcomer to the MediaGuardian 100, Lewis describes himself as "an obsessive liberal with a small l". The paper's political influence waxes and wanes with the fortunes of the Conservative Party. At the moment, it is on the up.

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